An attitudinal survey for newspaper readers in Newport, New Hampshire

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

From foxhole to classroom: world war II veterans at iowa state college

The Serviceman\u27s Readjustment Act of 1944, or GI Bill of Rights, afforded veterans of the Second World War an unprecedented opportunity: to finish a degree program interrupted by military service or begin a new degree program courtesy of the United States taxpayer. The GI Bill proved so successful that it is now deeply engrained in the mythos of 20th century Americana. However, the immediate reaction to the bill was not as positive. Initially presented as a method for economic recovery, the idea of sending veterans to school impressed few people, including the many administrators and experts in higher education for which passage of the bill would have a direct impact. Many experts felt veterans of the Second World War would make poor students and that their military service would prevent them from making positive contributions to campus life. This paper examines the history of the GI Bill, the preparations undertaken by administrators in higher education, and the reactions of students on the Iowa State College campus to the veteran student population by comparing the expectations presented in higher education journals of the 1940s to the outcomes of veterans on campus as documented in student newspapers and archived university records. Although veteran students and married students in particular, presented unique problems for college administrators, they did not have a negative impact on the college campus

Links Between Social Support, Thwarted Belongingness, and Suicide Ideation among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College Students

Emerging adults with a lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) identity are at greater risk for engaging in suicide-related behaviors. This disparity highlights a need to elucidate specific risk and protective factors associated with suicide-related behaviors among LGB youth, which could be utilized as targets for suicide prevention efforts in this population. Informed by the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide, the present study hypothesized that social support would be indirectly associated with decreased suicide ideation via lower thwarted belongingness. A sample of 50 emerging adults (62.0% male, 70.0% Hispanic) who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning, or “other” orientation, with a mean age of 20.84 years (SD = 3.30 years), completed self-report assessments. Results indicated that support from both family and the LGB community were associated with lower thwarted belongingness over and above the effects of age, sex, and depressive symptoms. Indirect effects models also indicated that both family and LGB community support were associated with suicide ideation via thwarted belongingness. The results of the present study suggest that family and LGB community support may represent specific targets for reducing thwarted belongingness that could be leveraged in suicide prevention efforts for LGB emerging adults

The Leeuwin current

The Leeuwin Current (LC) is a warm, poleward flowing ocean boundary current off the west and south coasts of Australia, driven by large-scale meridional (north-south) pressure gradient. On the interannual time scale, the strength of the LC is influenced by ENSO-related thermocline anomalies, and transmitted from the equatorial western Pacific into the southeast Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Archipelago. The LC and its interannual variability have profound impacts on marine ecosystems off the west and south coasts of Australia. For example, high recruitment of the western rock lobster (Panulirus cygnus) fishery of Western Australia is influenced by a stronger LC and the associated warmer water temperatures. Over the period from mid-1970s to mid-1990s, a trend of shallowing thermocline (subsurface cooling) in the equatorial western Pacific, which is coupled with a weakening trend of the trade winds in the Pacific, has transmitted into the southeast Indian Ocean and the LC region and caused a multi-decadal weakening trend of the LC. Comparing climate models and forced ocean circulation models suggests that the weakening LC is likely due to a combined effect of both global warming and natural variability in the climate system. There have been persistent warming trends observed in the LC and on the shelf in waters off the west coast during the past five decades. Over the same time period, more frequent Indian Ocean Dipole events and an upward trend of the Southern Annual Mode may have reduced the strength of the westerly winds and storm activity off the southwest coast, which may have adjusted the air-sea heat flux in the LC region and overcome the reduction of the LC heat transport to cause the warming trend. Both the changes in the LC and the air-sea freshwater flux may have also caused the observed increase in surface salinity off the coast. The surface warming and subsurface cooling, in combination with the reduction of storm activity, may have increased the vertical stratification in the water column and reduced vertical mixing in the LC region. Climate model simulations suggest that reductions of trade winds in the tropical Pacific, increase in the frequency of Indian Ocean Dipole events, and the upward trend of Southern Annual Mode in recent decades are mostly due to the effect of the increased Feng et al. 2009 www.oceanclimatechange.org.au 2 greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate model projections suggest these climate trends will likely continue in the future, so that the LC could continue to weaken slowly

Culturally Relevant Practices Within A Suburban/Rural School District

A certain group of students in America’s schools are faced with a struggle that prevents them from accessing an empowering form of education. This struggle originates from the question of whom to educate and how to equitably allocate resources (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Milner, 2010, 2012). While experiencing this struggle may impact all students, it is all too familiar for students of color. Students of color, throughout the country, are receiving unequal access to important resources when compared to their White counterparts (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Howard, 2020). As a result of inequitable access to resources, perceived gaps between students of color and White students have surfaced (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Howard, 2020; Ladson-Billings, 2006; Milner, 2010, 2012). Recognizing the causes of this these gaps will assist in identifying long-standing systemic problems that need to be addressed. For change to occur in the current system, a number of steps are necessary. To begin, the historical context of what has caused these inequities must be explored and understood. This historical context includes the conditions faced by students of color throughout history as well as the cultural mismatch that is experienced in today’s schools. The cultural mismatch may exist due to the largely White, female, and monolingual teaching force not recognizing the funds of knowledge students of color bring to the classroom. The mismatch may also exist as a result of the Eurocentric curriculum that is taught in most schools. Secondly, race and culture must also be acknowledged as well as what this means for students and their learning (Howard, 2020). By centering race, the historical and lived experiences faced by students of color cannot be ignored and teachers must move from behind the veil of being colorblind. When it comes to instructional practices, incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy is one possibility to begin to address the gaps faced by students of color. While far from a simple solution, it is one that when done properly should empower students and lead to academic excellence (Gay, 2018; Ladson-Billings, 2009). For this study, the researcher used exploratory research to take a precursory look at culturally relevant practices within a suburban/rural school district. The study explored what extent middle and high school teachers in a suburban/rural school district perceive they are incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy in their daily practices. The study also compared how teachers’ perceptions about their culturally relevant practices aligned or deviated from perceptions students from the district had about the same topics. The data collection tools that were used for this study included: a 15-item questionnaire that was administered to all teachers in the school district, a 13-item questionnaire that was administered to select high school students at the district’s high schools, semi-structured interviews with 12 middle school and high school teachers, and a five-year analysis of end-of-grade test scores, access to advanced courses, and discipline disproportionalities. The researcher used the theoretical framework of Critical Race Theory to analyze the data collected during the study and to explore how the framework’s tenets could be used uncover inequities in the school district and work to reduce the identified gaps.The researcher found that, to an extent, there are teachers within the school district who are currently using various components of culturally relevant pedagogy. When compared to the perceptions held by the students, it was discovered that the teachers perceive that they are using more culturally relevant practices than they actually are. The research conducted in this study holds value for both scholars and practitioners. The study adds to the larger body of research by showing the value for all students of incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy and by highlighting the importance of focusing on the topic of race when implementing culturally relevant practices.Doctor of Educatio

A Dark Matter Trigger for Early Dark Energy Coincidence

Early dark energy (EDE), whose cosmological role is localized in time around the epoch of matter-radiation equality in order to resolve the Hubble tension, introduces a new coincidence problem: why should the EDE dynamics occur near equality if EDE is decoupled from both matter and radiation? The resolution of this problem may lie in an {\it early dark sector} (EDS), wherein the dark matter mass is dependent on the EDE scalar field. Concretely, we consider a Planck-suppressed coupling of EDE to dark matter, as would naturally arise from breaking of the global $U(1)$ shift symmetry of the former by quantum gravity effects. With a sufficiently flat potential, the rise to dominance of dark matter at matter-radiation equality itself triggers the rolling and subsequent decay of the EDE. We show that this {\it trigger} EDS (tEDS) model can naturally resolve the EDE coincidence problem at the background level without any fine tuning of the coupling to dark matter or of the initial conditions. When fitting to current cosmological data, including that from the local distance ladder and the low-redshift amplitude of fluctuations, the tEDS maximum-likelihood model performs comparably to EDE for resolving the Hubble tension, achieving $H_0 =71.2$ km/s/Mpc. However, fitting the \emph{Planck} cosmic microwave background data requires a specific range of initial field positions to balance the scalar field fluctuations that drive acoustic oscillations, providing testable differences with other EDE models.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Coaching Initiative for Beginning Teachers (BT): Lessons Learned from One District’s BT Support Program

Instructional coaching is a way to support classroom teachers in their efforts to provide high quality instruction across academic content areas. Because of beginner teachers’ needs for extra support, many districts are now embracing instructional coaches to provide specific pedagogical feedback to their beginning teachers via job-embedded, individualized, and sustained professional guidance. This initial, exploratory study employed mixed methods to gain both qualitative and quantitative insights into one district’s Beginning Teacher Support Program in general and Coaching Program in particular. Results indicate that, without a laser-like focus on instruction, the impact of coaching on student achievement and teacher retention is limited. Sharing resources, providing emotional support and helping new teachers manage stress is important but discussing instructional strategies, observing and discussing lessons, and modeling instruction is critically more important